"My favorite moment of the past year was... holding Russ's hand under the total eclipse of the sun. Experiencing that powerful magic.
My proudest accomplishment was... pulling off a successful Nurture & Nourish Retreat.
I was most callenged by... my own negative thought cycles. The conversation with Julie.
My biggest sadness was... losing Zephyr dog.
My favorite adventure was... going to Havasupai for my birthday.
My shadow was... laziness, self-doubt, and fear.
My strength was.... commitment, dedication and fath.
I look forard to all the magic and mystery of the next cycle. Bring on the coming of the light!"
reflecting
"guns. i grew up with guns. i grew up in very small town america; norwood, colorado. in fifth grade we were required to take a hunter's safety course. so at the age of ten we went out in the fields around town with targets and weapons and learned to lock, load and shoot pistols, rifles, shotguns, semi-automatic weapons. the rifle being the most memorable to me at the time. i loved it. i was an excellent shot.
i am a gun owner. i am a native born coloradoan from deep, deep in the heart of nra country. i believe in our right to bear arms. i believe that fully automatic assault rifles should be illegal. i believe insane people should be unable to own weapons. i believe that we can all sit back and wait on a nice long background check before taking our guns home from the gun show. i don't believe the 2nd amendment and gun control have be mutually exclusive. i don't believe someone should be unchecked in their ability to purchase and stockpile enough heavy artillery to massacre people.
there is a lot of mythology we grow up with regarding guns, our 2nd ammendment and gun legislation. but here's a fact: norwood, colorado has a population of 572 as of 2016. 527 were injured and 59 killed in vegas yesterday. if an entire town of people - say for example my entire town of norwood - were injured or killed, would anything change? would there be any change to gun legislation? would we protect other towns? will we protect future victims? my heart breaks because i'm afraid the answer is no."
"i awoke from a dream about trimming, and trim scenes, and the golden glow of adventure and misogyny. a bunch of women, kept sometimes literally in a tower, working for a man. the good old days. there we worked, day in, day out, cut off from the outside world. testing our patience, our courage, our livers, our minds, until the leaves turned gold and the air grew chilly. we worked and worked until pumpkins came, until it snowed, until we couldn't work another day. then - freedom! giant stacks of cash and freedom to go wherever, to be your own guide. to leave town and never look back; until the next season.
it's fall here now, so the hills have infiltrated my subconscious.
last night we slept with the windows shut. the air is much cooler and the leaves are turning and falling. but fall in this world just isn't as exciting as fall in that other."
"... i've been processing what i'd like to leave in the past and what i'd like to use from my past to perfect my present. i definitely want to clean house; ridding myself of comparison, competitiveness, and jealousy. i especially want to leave behind any negative feelings towards women. i want to take my great love and admiration for my sisters and develop that into feelings of respect and support for all women working hard and doing their thing. i've always been easily happy for the success of others and i want to keep that with me and expand it even more, allowing it to strengthen and bolster these feelings of female empowerment.
i want this to show up in action by putting my gifts to use creating and facilitating spaces for women to grow and connect - through activity, through vulnerability, through humor, through adventure, through nature and through yoga. these are all building blocks in who i am and have been foundational in building healthy change in my life. i know that this combination works and i want to do my very best to share it with others.
i want to be kind. i want to be a liker not a hater, a supporter not a detractor, a positive force to move things forward, knowing that we area ll connected and when one succeeds we all benefit! aho!"
change change change change. that is the name of the game.
seasons, weather, light, people, moods, ideas, beliefs.
the things that don't bend, break. the things that don't change are overthrown. there is no space in this world for that which cannot evolve.
i felt like i'd gotten pretty comfortable with that fact. death, life, evolution. but then a big one came again, ruffled my feathers a bit, ripped me from what i'd been clinging to and revealed to me the places i'd started to stagnate. it's always a beneficial thing once you get through it - but fuck is it a difficult process.
so here's an update - it's been a while. i no longer live in costa rica, residing instead in the small and absurdly charming town of lafayette, colorado. it's the opposite side of the rockies from where i am from and grew up - which is strange. to be on the wrong side of such a forceful landmark, in such a wild land.
i struggled trying to get back in the swing of things - society wise. after being off the grid, out of the country, and gypsying around it was really uncomfortable to deal with the normalcy of traffic and workweeks, and answering phones. i never thought about this when i set out on my journey - the diffculty of returning. i got an office job. i quit it two weeks later. i no longer fit in an office. apparently after you go out to see how big the world is you can no longer shrink back into your former dimensions. i've stood on the edge of too many cliffs overlooking too many spectacular views. i couldn't sit at a desk and stare at a screen again.
this realization was terrifying. along with the realization that there isn't much in the photo industry going on around here - comparatively. not feeling ready to start shooting weddings and family portraits i turned to my other skills. so now i teach yoga and i work on a farm.
as with everything in life there is both good and bad and it's a tradeoff. we have a lovely home, but i miss our costa rican home. i have a garden. i've hardly left town all summer. my family is close. my friends are far away. i work outside. i make a fraction of what i once did. you get the picture - let's focus on the good because there is alot of that:
life is lovely. i live with the person i love the most. we have our costa rican dog, who makes me happy everyday and our good spirits. i am back in my mountains - where i feel most at home and most alive and i've been exploring them all summer, probably more than i ever have. i eat nothing but delicious, organic locally grown vegetables. i see my dad all the time. i have regular yoga students again and am going through the uniquely, rewarding process of building a relationship with them. i am working on some big projects to be unfolding over the next year or so.
life - in other words - is moving right along.
i miss you.
i found this quote today. it seemed fitting.
"for a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. the shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. to someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction."
~cynthia occelli
